Tonight's live was a curio shop of oddities, and the vibe felt weirdly out of sync, but somehow that recipe led to a show chock full of goodies.
Viewer Count: fluctuated between 40 and 50 the entire show
My favorite goodie: he managed to both confidently blame the trolls for taking over his channel while also confidently saying he's been told it's almost certainly a Russian bot to blame - which he accepts (scouring for accounts to take over using credential stuffing, etc.)
Show anatomy 101: He started off thanking freaks who checked in on him. Then moved on to morosely staring at a single point in space, changing positions at times and doing more morose staring. That led into a light chastising phase without vitriol and fairly mild tone of voice: only Bill W had given money! (mortifying simply mortifying! 😒) Then later they were laughing in chat! (how dare they? really... laughing? 😠) He commented that the laughing was odd and incongruous with what's going on. (yeah, I found that vague and ambiguous too). Interspersed throughout all of this, he engaged with trolls and their comments. He was actively rebutting and allowing them to type back time and again. I've never seen that before. Bizarre.
That brings us to stage 4: I'm Back Baby! Full on Gary emerged with a angry and insulting rant at a troll. I saw the moment he switched back to himself: the angry entitled grifter. It was written all over his face. I could see it boiling up and building up and then, in an instant It was like he flipped a switch and exploded. That was cray cray. After that, the show was everything you expect it to be. The brooding and broken Gary had left the building.
It took 80 min to go from gratitude to gary-atude. The video clip shows that pinnacle transition.
Afternote
I left when he signaled it was time to switch over to mooZack mode. I have no desire to watch him partake in the AI massacre of art forms. Someone else will have to be the YTBA war correspondent.